Eagles win at buzzer

February 22, 2014

INWOOD - Coaches Derek Basile of Musselman and Kelly Church of Hedgesville could not deny that the Cline Court carried an atmosphere that had a larger scale than just an Eastern Panhandle Athletic Conference regular-season game Friday night.

As the game headed into the final minute of regulation, the intensity reached its highest point.

"It felt like a tournament," Basile said. "This was a close game, and you see those often in tournaments."

"I really can't say enough about basketball right now in the Eastern Panhandle," Church said. "It was unfortunate that a team had to come out a loser in this game."

With the Eagles trailing by two heading into the final 40 seconds, Kimani King hit a 3-pointer from the right wing to give Hedgesville a 45-44 lead. Musselman responded by making three out of four free throws with Tommy Hargroves sinking a pair and Lee Daniels adding one more, giving the Applemen a 47-45 lead with 10.8 seconds left.

Following a foul by R.J. Stephens to put the Eagles in a halfcourt situation with 7.8 seconds remaining in regulation, C.J. Burks made a game-changing play.

Burks made a layup in traffic with 2.6 seconds left, drawing a foul on Trevon Wesco to set up the potential go-ahead free throw. Burks missed the foul shot off the back of the rim, but the Eagles were far from finished. Eli Gates tipped the ball to Daniel Delaware, who caught the ball behind the 3-point line and took a shot.

The buzzer-beating shot went through the net, giving the Eagles a 50-47 victory, completing a comeback from an 11-point halftime deficit.

"I was glad C.J. made the shot for the 'and-one' to tie the score up," Delaware said. "That took a lot of pressure off of me because the game was already tied. Had I missed, we would have had another four minutes to play out the whole rest of the game."

"I was scared when I missed the free throw because I had no idea what was going to happen," Burks said. "Daniel's shot was really clutch. He's a junior, and hit a big shot that we needed."

Hedgesville started out with a quick set of baskets with Delaware and King, but Musselman responded as the first quarter came to a close as Stephens made a layup to make the score 11-10, and Wesco hit a 3-pointer for a 14-10 lead after one quarter.

Musselman continued to roll in the second quarter, firing successful backdoor passes into the basket and winning the battle inside, taking a 29-14 lead into the locker room at intermission.

"We played well offensively," Basile said. "We were moving the ball well and taking good shots."

Following the break, Wesco began to shoulder the scoring load for the Applemen, scoring nine of his game-high 24 points in the third quarter.

"Trevon did a good job posting up and scoring for us in the third," Basile said. "We unfortunately got pushed out too much."

While Wesco was set to carry the load offensively, the Hedgesville side began to take a more simplistic approach to erasing the Musselman advantage.

"Coming out of halftime, we told our kids that we were going to play four four-minute games," Church said.

"If we were going to go out there and try to come back from that in five minutes, that's not going to happen.

"We did a great job of that and being patient as Musselman started to get on their runs."

"The approach worked out well," Delaware said. "Instead of thinking of it as two quarters, we just had to keep chopping down at the lead."

Hedgesville cut the 11-point Applemen lead down to four by the end of the third quarter as Burks finished with eight of his team-high 20 points and Delaware added six of his 17 points, setting the table for the intense final quarter of basketball.